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fairytales of architecture

Citroën display building / Champs Elysées, Paris

C42 is the showroom and brand experience for carmaker Citroën has opened in 2007 on the Champs-Élysées inthe centre of Paris, designed by French architect Manuelle Gautrand.

The C42’s red and white glass tower is located on the site of its original 1927 showroom since André Citroën set up shop there in the 1920s, at number 42 Champs Elysées;

The architecture of the C42 Showroom in Paris presents the brand Citroën without the need for a logo. With this design approach Manuelle Gautrand created a strong connection between the building and the brand Citroën.

“Combining innovative architecture, compelling style and a bold approach to design, the C42 – C for Citroën, 42 for the building number – embodies both the rich history and contemporary vision of the Marque.

The bold, prominent design of the C42 echoes the spirit of creativity and innovation that has always been such an integral part of Citroën’s philosophy, while further reflecting the style renaissance that the brand has undergone over the past few years.

Visibility and light are both dominant themes of the C42’s design. During the day, the glass-fronted face allows sunlight to pour into the showroom, enhancing the sense of space and highlighting the building’s reflective surfaces. By night the C42 is illuminated in a play of light in the recognisable Citroën shades of white and red.” [Source]

It is like an avant-garde glass sculpture, dominated by soaring chevrons that assert the building’s Citroën identity ,recalling origami in its complexity.

To display the cars themselves, there are eight circular platforms each of which is six meters in diameter, having a mirrored base to reflect the car below, and turns to show off the car on all sides.

A panoramic elevator lift gets the visitors to the top floor from where he has a breath-taking view across some of Paris’ most recognised landmarks, such as the Eiffel tower and the Place de la Concorde.

“The automobile manufacturer Citroën wanted their new flagship showroom on the Champs-Elysées to be really ambitious. So we developed a concept that would magnify their cars in a building with strong symbolic presence, a kind of corporate totem composed of eight vehicles stacked on platter one on top of the other.

The arrangement forms a gigantic upright display around which visitors move in an ascending/descending spiral movement via flights of stairs and landings. At the top, the sculptural erection opens superb views up and down the avenue, over the city and across the nearby gardens and river.

The cars are displayed on revolving circular platforms under a faceted mirror-ceiling that fragments and multiplies their lines and details. Besides enhancing the presence of the display models, the effect accentuates the vertical reality of space and creates an exhilarating sense of lightness.

Around this scenography, the skin is all in faceted glass and plays on the distinctive shape of the Citroën logo: the chevron. At street level on the Champs-Elysées, the façade begins as a simple flat curtain wall. The double chevron soon appears proliferating as it rises in free and inventive array right up to the summit. The glass front unfolds a gigantic origami, colored by diaphanous white and red film that lets subdued clear light into the interior.” [text from architect’s website]